My Wat, Wat Sriboonruang, has a dynamic young Abbot who is an excellent community activist. Students from around Chiang Mai region come to the Wat for camps, day camps, lessons and talks. The lay community supports the temple very well and actively. He supports the lay people, and they support him. He is building an international meditation centre, and plans to have a hospital; for monks one day.

So long as the Bhikkhus think first of their community, and serve the community with a kind and open heart, the temples will never lack for a sangha. It seems to me that in some city temples in BKK, the monks have graduated into lack of interest in the sangha and are focused on their own status, and the young people of the big cities have no time for these monks and temples any longer.

The counterbalance for the point of the news story above is what is happening in northern Chiang Mai. The news there is very good and I am very optimistic for the future of Thai Buddhism.